Google's 10-Year Chromebook Lifeline Leaves Old Laptops Headed For Silicon Cemetery (theregister.com) 52
The Register's Dan Robinson reports: Google promised a decade of updates for its Chromebooks in 2023 to stop them being binned so soon after purchase, but many are still set to reach the end of the road sooner than later. The appliance-like laptop devices were introduced by megacorp in 2011, running its Linux-based ChromeOS platform. They have been produced by a number of hardware vendors and proven popular with buyers such as students, thanks to their relatively low pricing. The initial devices were designed for a three-year lifespan, or at least this was the length of time Google was prepared to issue automatic updates to add new features and security fixes for the onboard software.
Google has extended this Auto Update Expiration (AUE) date over the years, prompted by irate users who purchased a Chromebook only to find that it had just a year or two of software updates left if that particular model had been on the market for a while. The latest extension came in September 2023, when the company promised ten years of automatic updates, following pressure from the US-based Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). The advocacy organization had recommended this move in its Chromebook Churn report, which criticized the devices as not being designed to last.
PIRG celebrated its success at the time, claiming that Google's decision to extend support would "save millions of dollars and prevent tons of e-waste from being disposed of." But Google's move actually meant that only Chromebooks released from 2021 onward would automatically get ten years of updates, starting in 2024. For a subset of older devices, an administrator (or someone with admin privileges) can opt in to enable extended updates and receive the full ten years of support, a spokesperson for the company told us. This, according to PIRG, still leaves many models set to reach end of life this year, or over the next several years. "According to my research, at least 15 Chromebook models have already expired across most of the top manufacturers (Google, Acer, Dell, HP, Samsung, Asus, and Lenovo). Models released before 2021 don't have the guaranteed ten years of updates, so more devices will continue to expire each year," Stephanie Markowitz, a Designed to Last Campaign Associate at PIRG, told The Register.
"In general, end-of-support dates for consumer tech like laptops act as 'slow death' dates," according to Markowitz. "The devices won't necessarily lose function immediately, but without security updates and bug patches, the device will eventually become incompatible with the most up-to-date software, and the device itself will no longer be secure against malware and other issues."
A full ist of end-of-life dates for Chromebook models can be viewed here.
Google has extended this Auto Update Expiration (AUE) date over the years, prompted by irate users who purchased a Chromebook only to find that it had just a year or two of software updates left if that particular model had been on the market for a while. The latest extension came in September 2023, when the company promised ten years of automatic updates, following pressure from the US-based Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). The advocacy organization had recommended this move in its Chromebook Churn report, which criticized the devices as not being designed to last.
PIRG celebrated its success at the time, claiming that Google's decision to extend support would "save millions of dollars and prevent tons of e-waste from being disposed of." But Google's move actually meant that only Chromebooks released from 2021 onward would automatically get ten years of updates, starting in 2024. For a subset of older devices, an administrator (or someone with admin privileges) can opt in to enable extended updates and receive the full ten years of support, a spokesperson for the company told us. This, according to PIRG, still leaves many models set to reach end of life this year, or over the next several years. "According to my research, at least 15 Chromebook models have already expired across most of the top manufacturers (Google, Acer, Dell, HP, Samsung, Asus, and Lenovo). Models released before 2021 don't have the guaranteed ten years of updates, so more devices will continue to expire each year," Stephanie Markowitz, a Designed to Last Campaign Associate at PIRG, told The Register.
"In general, end-of-support dates for consumer tech like laptops act as 'slow death' dates," according to Markowitz. "The devices won't necessarily lose function immediately, but without security updates and bug patches, the device will eventually become incompatible with the most up-to-date software, and the device itself will no longer be secure against malware and other issues."
A full ist of end-of-life dates for Chromebook models can be viewed here.
Not for my use cases but... (Score:2)
Not for my use cases but I heard Chromebooks are pretty good for some use cases.
Re:Not for my use cases but... (Score:4, Funny)
Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Linux (Score:4, Informative)
It varies from model to model. Like buying a Wi-Fi router, you need to do some model-specific research ahead of time.
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On 'newer' ones, you need a 'suzy-q' cable. This basically exposes a debug serial port over usb, and lets you instruct the firmware to unlock and accept an out of band update.
'Strangely enough' these are not very plentiful, or so mrchromebox.tech says.
I seem to find chinese clones on amazon OK enough though. Havent bought one, but maybe I should.
If you have one, putting coreboot uefi firmware on is not that difficult.
You can run linux (or windows.. if you really wanted...) on them well enough. For some of
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There are many, many laptops that can't run Windows 11 about to get scrapped. Often quite good spec and able to be upgraded for cheap too. Being sold at scrap prices.
It's just not worth the effort with a low end Chromebook, when you have so many better options.
That said, you can still use a Chromebook with ChromeOS after support has ended. Apps still get updated, including the Chrome browser. No major unmitigated CVEs at the current time on most of them.
Hard to find sub-14" laptops (Score:2)
You are better off spending the money on a real laptop though.
The problem with that, as in fourth quarter 2012 when they killed off netbooks the first time [slashdot.org], is that it's hard to find "a real laptop" with a screen smaller than 14" diagonal anymore. Some people prefer a small screen (10.1" to 11.6") in order to work on hobby programming projects to pass the time while riding public transit to and from work.
Refurbish biz opportunity (Score:2)
> If you remove the screw, you can install the OS of your choice.
Sounds like a great business: purchase expired Chromebooks at very cheap prices, maybe at bulk from schools and biz's, refurbish their OS with Linux, test, and resell for say $200? I'd buy one!
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The problem with that is, you can get a better laptop for $250 or $300. I have a pretty nice AMD laptop which was $300 at Wally world or Target or something. It's got 2C/4T and just enough GPU cores to do video acceleration gracefully, gets nice battery life, is very light and fairly thin... and it's a normal laptop without weird restrictions. I was able to upgrade the RAM (I didn't really need to, but I was able to get another 4GB DIMM with exactly matching part numbers used on the bay for twenty bucks) an
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What about $100 but sell them to rural private schools who like to save a buck.
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If you could get it done that cheap, it might work.
Schools like Chromebooks which AREN'T running some other OS, though, because there are management tools available for them, so you're going to have to come up with a solution for that as well.
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There was a time when this made sense. That time was 2016-2018. I still have my hacked Acer C720. I've had two puffed batteries and haven't bothered getting a new one this last time (I'm just running it with no battery), and it's so slow it hurts, but it was a pretty good bargain at the time and I really can't complain.
Of course it helped that I specifically sought out the same model that the lead dev of the Chrultrabook project (yeah, stupid name) used personally, since I could count on it receiving update
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You have to pop a screw out on some models to update the firmware/bios/whatever they call it that day. I've got a couple I use as traveling notebooks just to write in at the end of the day or to code up some simple web nonsense when I have a free moment. They're "adequate" at that task.
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You have to pop a screw out on some models to update the firmware/bios/whatever they call it that day. I've got a couple I use as traveling notebooks just to write in at the end of the day or to code up some simple web nonsense when I have a free moment. They're "adequate" at that task.
Thanks. I would guess that for anyone that ChromeOS was adequate Linux would be an acceptable replacement rather than scrap the device due to lack of updates. You may have to relearn a few things, but there certainly are decent alternatives if all you are doing is basic WP, spreadsheet, web surfing and watching videos.
Not to worry... (Score:5, Informative)
I mentor at a Code Club. All our machines are donated, including 5 or 6 Chromebooks. We have installed Mint on all the machines to save ourselves the grief of the machines not being identical. Mint works fine on the Chromebooks.
Footnote: I am fairly certain that all our Chromebooks are older than 2021
The tech discount sites aren't helping here (Score:4)
I'm noticing that the daily discount sites like Woot are offering these near EOL Chromebooks for highly discounted prices like $99, and only showing the EOL date in the fine print under the giant Buy It Now button.
I'd imagine that many of those buyers are contributing to this eWaste problem when they realize that they Chromebook they just bought only has 12 months of updates left.
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"I'd imagine that many of those buyers are contributing to this eWaste problem"
They're not making new units of old models. They're already made, so the eWaste quantity is already set. It's just a matter of when.
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I'm noticing that the daily discount sites like Woot are offering these near EOL Chromebooks for highly discounted prices like $99, and only showing the EOL date in the fine print under the giant Buy It Now button.
I'd imagine that many of those buyers are contributing to this eWaste problem when they realize that they Chromebook they just bought only has 12 months of updates left.
You can't expect the businesses who bought the stock to absorb that cost. That's a consumer problem.
ChromeOS "Flex" helps (Score:3)
Re: ChromeOS "Flex" helps (Score:2)
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You might be able to get the appropriate sound chip driver from GalliumOS (a long-dead Chromebook-specific Linux distro), who I believe cheekily extracted them from ChromeOS.
It's just a glorified web browser (Score:2)
Three Years / Five years (Score:4, Insightful)
I work for a school district. We have a three year replacement cycle, with better conditioned older units as "spares" for another 2 or 3 years.
This isn't a dig on Chromebooks, it is that is the lifespan of these devices in the hands of students. We tear down "broken" units for spare parts, and refurbish what we can. Keyboards and screens being the #1 and #2 victims of student life.
I can't imagine ten years of regular use out of them. That is just wishful (political) thinking.
And grinding them up and recycling is the correct disposal method.
Re:Three Years / Five years (Score:4, Insightful)
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Six years or so max is my experience.
Laptop Batteries are the death rattle of laptops. Even if you take perfect care. The cost of replacing a battery that is 5 years or older is close to half the cost of a better than replacement (more HD, RAM etc), especially if one has to pay to have it done (>50% of people).
The HD upgrades over the last ten years alone have been spectacular, from Spinning to SSD to M.2.
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And you bring up a funny point, people focus on their immediate cost of fixing "X" versus buying new instead of thinking of it as an investment in keeping the poisons out of the landfill/environment. That shortsightedness is why we're in trouble.
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Yeah - the charigng port, keyboard, or hinges will have broken long before this 10 years is up.
I think Chromeboxes would be more of a problem - but I'm not sure how many of those were ever sold. We have a suite of them about 7 years old still working fine. If we are still using them after the 10 year deadline that says more about the state of my country (the UK) than Google - it would be like us having a suite of Windows Vista computers still in use.
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Depends what you're using them for. I have a netbook which I bought 14 years ago and still use regularly. The wifi doesn't work (I'm not sure whether it's a hardware fault or a driver problem), but that makes it perfect for times when I want to focus on thinking and writing without being distracted.
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Would most people have a use for these?
Most people use them for the following tasks:
1. Web browsing
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Quite a few 'newer' models use i3 chips in them.
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Not all Celerons sucked, either. The "U" Celerons were basically an underclocked i3 without Hyperthreading. Way, way better than the "N" Celerons which are Atom cores.
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I've done design work using OnShape (browser-based CAD) on a Chromebook just fine.
I doubt it would hold up to complex assemblies, but creating basic parts for 3D printing was totally doable.
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Mate, you're on a Chromebook. Of course web browsing is gonna suck!
Install Firefox within the Linux container with the NoScript and Ublock Origin plugins and you'll be good to go.
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I've got a house full of old Lenovo machines
The workstations run kubuntu and the servers run nas4free (bsd)
They're cheap and they do job reliably.
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Indeed. I almost never buy Lenovo because they apparently last forever. Like... this machine I'm on is 15 years old, and doing fine. I did make sure work got me a new Lenovo though.
That's a good life for a low cost device (Score:2)
10 years is long by Google standards (Score:1)
Most of their products are retired in 5.
"Cancel fast and break trust"
Update OS (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
GalliumOS is still an excellent place to find hardware drivers (particularly sound chips) that aren't in a standard Linux distro.
I still remember the infighting around 2016 between the Gallium devs and the Coreboot devs, although I no longer remember what exactly it was about or how it started.
Open it up and set the jumper but the battery... (Score:2)
Open it up and set the jumper so you can install Neverware CloudReady or ChromeOS Flex.
But when the cheap battery dies in two years you're on your own. I put Neverware on my Chromebooks but it wasn't worth the trouble because the batteries died too soon.
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Rip out the failed battery and do without, and commit it to stationary use such as set top box. That's what I've done with mine after the second battery swell.
Ship them to Google headquarters (Score:2)
Maybe it could be a Go-Fund-Me or some other volunteer funded project.
10 years of support is pretty good... (Score:2)
I bought a dirt cheap (£171) 2-in-1 Lenovo Chromebook last year that's got support until June 2033 - I suspect either the battery or screen will probably die well before that expiry date.
It's only got a bargain basement Intel N100 CPU in it, but I just wanted a laptop to mess around with that was a) stupidly cheap and b) didn't come with Windows - Chromebooks fit that role perfectly for me. The fact it can run Android and Linux apps seamlessly is just icing on the cake - it makes it actually usable wh